


Rose's Daughter

by fanoftheprofoundbond



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4395734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanoftheprofoundbond/pseuds/fanoftheprofoundbond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Amelia, just before she dies, tells Claire that she and Jimmy aren't her real parents, Claire's new mission in life is to find her real parents. While Dean and Castiel are pretty cool, neither is her real dad. But when she learns that her father is a man called the Doctor, and that neither he, nor her mother, Rose, wanted her, she isn't quite sure what to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“There’s five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey, and the baby,” Rose said. There was a barely perceptible catch in her voice on the last word.

The Doctor was taken aback. “You... you’re not...?” he questioned, not really wanting to say the words.

“I _was_ ,” Rose corrected, biting her lip. “I had a baby girl. I came to find you as soon as I was back on my feet.”

“Why?” the Doctor whispered, suddenly finding that he was unable to speak.

“I can’t keep her.” Rose shook her head. “I...it’s too painful. I’m never gonna see you again, yeah? Every time I look at her...” Rose brought her hand up to her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment. The Doctor could tell that she was trying hard not to cry. After a moment, the blonde woman opened her eyes again.

“I can’t keep her,” she said firmly.

The Doctor nodded, the knowledge of it all dawning upon him.

“And you want me to take her.”

“Yes.”

The Doctor turned in a pretence of looking busy, though what he really wanted was to hide his face. His voice he could keep control of, though.

“The Tardis is no place for a child, you know. I’ll have to find a home for her.”

“I don’t care,” Rose said. “Just take her. I don’t want to see her ever again.”

How could she be so cold, so cruel, the Doctor wondered. Didn’t she realize that this was hurting him, too? Yes, perhaps his life of travelling wouldn’t be the best environment for a child. But it could work. If he had the strength to do it... which he didn’t. He couldn’t. He _wouldn’t_. He wouldn’t put himself through so much pain. And he had thought that leaving Rose would be painful enough. This was much, so much more worse.

So he took the baby girl. The Doctor went travelling the world, trying to find a place for his daughter. Every fiber of his being wanted to drop her off at the first place he could find. _Was this how his companions felt when he left them?_ But he held onto the ever-fading resolve that he had to find a good place for her. Somewhere that she would be loved, cared for. She needed a family – and a good one at that.

It was in the United States where the Doctor finally decided to leave his unnamed daughter. Perhaps it was because he himself so often stayed in Britain when he was on earth – at least he wouldn’t run into his daughter this way. Whatever it was that made him go here, the Doctor found himself in front of a neat house with a white picket fence. The Doctor took a deep breath, cloaked the Tardis, and moved his ship into the little house so that he could see if this was the right place for his daughter.

Crying. That was the first thing that the Doctor heard. He was about to leave right away, but a male voice gave him pause.

“Amelia,” the voice said. The voice was kind and caring. “Amelia, I don’t care that you can’t have children. I love you. I love you just as much as the day that I asked you to marry me. There are other ways to get children.”

There was the sound of a few sniffles and then a woman’s voice spoke up.

“I... I love you, too, Jimmy.”

Shuffling noises. The Doctor looked at the little screen to show him what was going on outside the Tardis environment to see a man with dark hair holding his wife in a comforting embrace, his hand stroking her blond hair.

The Doctor left his daughter in a basket on the Novak’s front doorstep, ringing the doorbell before he quickly disappeared.

And that was how Amelia and Jimmy Novak met their daughter Claire. But they never told her that. At least, not until now.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _This chest is full of memories  
>  Of gold and silver tears_

“Mommy... no! You can’t die! Please,” Claire Novak begged her mother as Amelia lay in her arms.

“Claire, baby... I... I have to tell you something,” Amelia told her daughter, her voice coming out ragged.

Claire shook her head violently. “You can tell me later.” 

Her mother couldn’t die. Not now – not when they had been reunited again after long last. Not when Claire had realized that she did truly love her mother. Not when she had realized that she really did need a mother to care for her, to keep her from doing the things that she would just regret later on.

“I’m not your real mother.”

Claire was jolted out of her reverie by this brusque statement.

“What?” she asked, her tone becoming rough because she was so shocked.

“Jimmy and I... we’re not your real parents. Someone left you on our doorstep when you were a baby. Before the doorbell rang... I... I thought I saw a man in the window. A tall, very thin man with brown hair. He was only there for a moment. Jimmy thought I was just seeing things... but I’m positive he was the one who left you there. I’m sorry, baby.”

Amelia’s voice died away and her breath rasped. It had obviously been hard for her to give such a speech when she was in her death throes.

Claire laughed harshly. “Left on your doorstep? You’re joking, right? You _cannot_ tell me that I’m living in some trashy romance story...” She broke off as Amelia shuddered, forgetting her disgust of the idea for the moment. “Mom... no!”

But Amelia was gone. Claire stared at the blonde woman’s face for the longest while in shock. It wasn’t until Castiel came over and put a hand on her shoulder, saying her name quietly, tenderly, and worriedly, that Claire snapped out of it.

“Don’t touch me!” she yelled, simultaneously shaking off Castiel’s hand and pushing her mother off her lap so that she could get up.

“I’m surrounded by liars,” she muttered, stalking out of the room.

Castiel looked at the Winchester brothers worriedly. Dean shrugged and looked helpless.

“Should I...?” Castiel asked.

Sam shook his head. “Let her be for a little while,” he said wisely.

 

Outside, Claire breathed in the night air with big gulps. She was trying very hard not to cry. She was too big for that, too strong. No. Not even a mother who she had trusted but who had _lied_ to her could make her cry.

She looked up to the heavens and imagined her father and mother... no, _Jimmy_ and _Amelia_ there.

“I hate you,” she told them, angrily.

But, somehow, she couldn’t find herself angry at the Novaks, who had taken her in and done what they thought was best for her. No... it was her real parents that she should be mad at. They had abandoned her! There had been a father... maybe her mother had died. So then at least he must take the blame.

She was going to find him, just like she had found Amelia. And this time, someone was going to get a real tongue lashing from her.

Claire narrowed her eyes. Yes. That was exactly what was going to happen.

“Claire?”

She rolled her eyes. Castiel. _Again._ She had to admit that the guy did seem to genuinely care for her, but damn, he could be annoying with the way he was constantly trying to make sure she was okay. Couldn’t he see that she wasn’t okay and just let her be?

“Yeah?” she replied as Castiel entered her peripheral and stood beside her.

“What are you going to do now?”

Claire raised her eyebrows. Well... that was unexpected. This sounded more like Dean than Castiel... but then, Castiel was completely different from the Castiel who had taken her fa... _Jimmy_ away, and she suspected it had a lot to do with hanging around Dean Winchester. She also appreciated the focus on future action rather than her thoughts right now because, honestly, she didn’t want to talk about feelings right now... or, ever, probably.

She turned to a method of nonchalance, shrugging her shoulders.

“I dunno... maybe find my dad... my real dad, I mean. And then find out why the hell he just dropped me on some random people’s doorstep.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t random,” Castiel protested. (There, that was more like him.) “There was obviously a reason for his choice of family. There must have been a reason why he couldn’t take care of you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Claire waved her hand in a general gesture of dismissal. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to give him the telling-off of his life when I find him.”

Castiel nodded tightly. “Do you want my help?”

There he went again, surprising her. However, Claire pretended to not care. It was easier that way, to shrug off feelings. If you didn’t create attachments, it wouldn’t hurt when they left you in the dumpster. She wasn’t going to let herself make that mistake again.

“Yeah, I suppose you could, if you want.”

 

Castiel nodded slowly. He could see Claire’s emotions swirling around in her brain as she tried to bottle them up. After all, the angel powers meant that it was kind of hard _not_ to see, even though he didn’t mean to snoop around in Claire’s head. There was so much hurt, disappointment, and loss that it made him sad. There was so much desperation and anger... but there was also loneliness. And, deep down, even though Claire tried to shrug off any gesture of kindness that he made, Castiel could tell that Claire wasn’t as cold as she appeared to be. She appreciated it when he showed her that someone did indeed care about her wellbeing. She had clung to him when Dean had killed her foster father. And even though she had rolled her eyes and pretended that the Grumpy Cat doll (the lady in the store’s idea) was childish, he had seen her tuck it away in her bag... after first looking at it with a little smile on her face.

He knew it was hard for her to let anyone in, to let herself care for anyone because she was scared that she would be hurt again. So he just had to keep trying and wait. He wished that she wasn’t hurting, though.

“I’m sure Sam and Dean will have some ideas,” was what he said out loud. “We’ll... I’ll find your father, Claire. No matter what it takes.”

The new adult looked up at him with a sense of almost awe in her eyes. _Really? You would do that for me?_ her mind said.

“If you want,” was what she said out loud.

“I _do_ want to help, Claire,” Castiel assured her, trying to make her see that that’s all he wanted.

“Whatever,” Claire shrugged as Sam and Dean came out of the rogue angel’s establishment.

“We good here?” Dean asked, a little gruffly. Castiel could tell that he was worried about Claire, too. They all were.

“Good as I’ll ever be,” Claire said abruptly. That hurt, too. “Are we going back to the motel or what?”

“Claire,” Sam broached the topic the three had been discussing while Castiel was giving Claire some time to herself. He coughed, Castiel sure that anyone could read the uncertainty from his face.

Claire gave him a facial expression that Castiel had often seen on Sam’s own face. Dean called it a ‘bitch face.’

“Yes?” she asked, her voice comparable to something that Dean had described as the ‘so done’ tone.

“We wanted to know if you’d like to come with us,” Sam continued. “We can help you try to find your dad... or at least try to. And during the meantime, you can stay at the bunker. We’ve got lots of room. You can even help with hunts, if you want.”

Castiel was pretty sure that the last statement was just a bribe because he doubted Sam and Dean would really let Claire get herself tangled up in such a life... even though she had shown quite some skill with an angel blade in there.

Claire looked suspicious, probably thinking the same thing.

“Really? You’ll let me go on hunts?” The blonde folded her arms.

“You’ll have to train first,” Sam said as the same time as Dean replied, “We’ll see.”

Claire looked at both of them with narrowed eyes, even looking at Castiel with the same expression (Castiel tried to look as pleasant and inviting as possible), before sighing and unfolding her arms.

“Fine. But only as a test run. If I see anything I don’t like, I’m out of here. I’m perfectly capable of finding my dad on my own.”

Sam nodded. “Of course you are,” he assured Claire. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to go it alone.”

“Whatever,” Claire rolled her eyes and started walking to the parked Impala. “Let’s get out of here.”

Castiel looked over at Dean, unsure what to make out of all this. Dean only shrugged and started following Claire

"Let’s just take it one step at a time, man," he said quietly as he passed Castiel.

The angel wondered whether Dean was talking about Claire or about him.


End file.
